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Health Resources for Typhoon Haiyan Survivors

The National Library of Medicine announces the activation of the Emergency Access Initiative (EAI) in support of medical efforts in the Philippines and surrounding areas following the devastating typhoon.The Emergency Access Initiative is a collaborative partnership between NLM and participating publishers to provide free access to full-text articles from over 650 biomedical serial titles and over 4,000 reference books and online databases to healthcare professionals and libraries affected by disasters.

The Emergency Access Initiative serves as a temporary collection replacement and/or supplement for libraries affected by disasters that need to continue to serve medical staff and affiliated users.It is also intended for medical personnel responding to the specified disaster.

EAI is not an open access collection – it is only intended for those affected by the disaster or assisting the affected population. If your library is working with a library or organization involved in relief efforts in the Philippines or other affected areas, please let them know of this service.

The initiative is a pretty cool way to provide help from a place of privilege (these are incredibly expensive resources with highly specialized information that isn’t widely accessible but has the potential to save lives). If you’re interested in access to biomedical information that’s freely available all the time, there’s a link for that, too. If you’re looking for other ways to donate your time, money, or expertise to help those affected by Typhoon Haiyan (or if people ask you what to do because you’re Asian…I know, it happens sometimes…), the Asian Pacific Librarian Association has compiled a nice list of places besides the Red Cross. Many of them are based in affected areas, so they’re working within existing structures and relationships.

PS. Who thought I was going to talk about Richard Cohen repressing his gag reflex in response to “the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde“, AKA mixed race families? I hadn’t realized that my racial identity had gone from vomit inducing and avant-garde to gag worthy and mainstream. But seriously, jerks like Richard Cohen are a dime a dozen and if you want to read some righteous commentary, Ta-nehisi Coates has you covered. Doesn’t he always?